HP the only big firm to grow in storage market in Q3

All-flash market up by more than half year on year

HP was the only big vendor to see total disk storage sales rise in Q3, according to IDC, which said the market as a whole grew 2.8 per cent annually.

In Q3, total global sales of enterprise storage climbed 2.8 per cent annually to $9.1bn (£6.04bn), driven by strong growth from HP and the "others" category of vendors outside the top five.

HP – which split into two on 1 November, after IDC's analysis period ended – saw sales in the market jump 16 per cent annually, prompting its market share to climb from 14.4 per cent to 16.3 per cent – closing in on first-placed EMC.

EMC saw its sales in the market slump eight per cent, but it managed to hang on to the top spot even though its share fell from 20.5 per cent to 18.4 per cent. In third place, Dell – which is in the process of closing a $67bn takeover of EMC – saw its sales fall 1.6 per cent, prompting its market share to fall marginally from 10.3 per cent to 9.9 per cent.

NetApp and IBM were tied in fourth place, with the former's sales falling 12.8 per cent annually and the latter's dropping by 32.5 per cent over the same period. The duo holds 7.1 per cent and 6.4 per cent market share respectively.

Revenue in the external storage market – which forms part of the total market – fell 3.1 per cent annually to $5.76bn, which IDC research manager for storage Liz Conner said contributed to growth in other areas of the market.

"The enterprise storage market continued to follow a consistent trend in the third quarter of 2015," she said. "Spending on traditional external arrays declined during the quarter as infrastructure refresh, coupled with the demand for software-defined storage and cloud-based storage, drove investments more heavily in server-based storage and hyperscale infrastructure."

The flash market got a mention by IDC in its analysis: it claims revenue in the all-flash array market grew a whopping 60.8 per cent annually to $626.2m.